To reverse the poor performance of your team, you must really know the problem. According to Bernard Marr, one of the principles of team management says that a great performance is no magic, but the result of two ingredients: ability and motivation. Keeping it in mind, it’s time to find out what exactly is missing for your team to become (or be again) source of pride:
Lack of ability
- Resources
If a professional needs more time, money, workforce, or supplies to complete a task, he/she won’t be able to complete it, no matter how much he/she wants to. For your luck, this is probably the easiest problem to worry about. However, be sure that you are approachable, so anyone in your team can tell you his (whom?) problem sooner, instead of trying to make it work without the proper resources.
- Obstacles
Obstacles that undermine the team performance include from getting a bad decision from clients to failed dialogue between heads and employees. From the need to repeat bureaucratic tasks, fill timesheets and reports, for example, to difficulty to cooperate between departments. As the leader of team management, you should observe and step in by allowing that everyone indicates their obstacles and suggests improvements.
- Skills
Sometimes a performance problem is a lack of skills. Perhaps the employee was promoted before he/she was ready, or a new set of job duties has been assigned and wasn’t in accord with his/her skills. Hopefully some extra training or mentoring can solve this performance problem. If you conclude that this is the case, the solution is to instruct or even offer training. And never overlook the regular feedback, when you can show the confidence you have placed on the person.
- Expectations
If no clear quality parameters for a project have been set, it’s hard to ask for great outcomes. When it’s a new project, it may be risky to keep implicit what’s expected from it. So, go over the project goals and deadlines and see if you can help clear up any confusion or miscommunication.
Lack of motivation
- Impulse
Could your employees say that they are recognized when they do a good work? Yet the professional master what he works on, having his/her good work recognized is vitally important to his/her work engagement, especially when exceeding his/her roles. Furthermore, employees may begin to slack off if they perceive that their hard work goes unrecognized.
- Correction
If there are no penalties for poor performance, some employees may feel they can “get away with” turning work in late or poorly done. You mustn’t start handing down punishments suddenly, but take the time to review or design a step-by-step series of consequences for poor performance and announce them to the entire team before implementing.
- Burnout
Observe if the performance issue is not related to some resentment between professionals, because of some asperity. Otherwise, who you think is bored, in fact, may be exhausted. It’s up to the manager to renew the spirit of that person, and not treat his/her stress as an excuse for a below average performance. For a conscious manager, it’s a red flag signaling that the talents of the team are overloaded, and yet, underutilized.
Now that you have means of identifying the roots of the failure in your team, it’s essential to take provisions of team management. This involves contributing to their empowerment and motivation. For this there’s Runrun.it, the team management software adopted by more than 100,000 companies in over 100 countries. Try it for free: http://runrun.it
Now that you have means of identifying the roots of the failure in your team, it’s essential to take provisions of team management. This involves contributing to their empowerment and motivation. For this there’s Runrun.it, the team management software adopted by more than 100,000 companies in over 100 countries. Try it for free: http://runrun.it
